24 Nov

Thought I´d grab five minutes to update you all on our final preparations for our voyage which begins on Sunday. We arrived in La Gomera a week last Sunday, and have spent a pretty frantic week and a half working on the boat to get it finally ready. We found that our watermaker had pretty much given up the ghost, and that one of our three solar panels was also stuffed, which wasn´t a good thing. Given that they´re both pretty essential bits of kit, we´ve had to buy new versions of each (a quick 2 1/2 grand down the drain), but happily they´ve arrived in time and are now merrily churning out water and power. Hurrah!

We got the boat scrutineered last Friday, and now comply with the race rules, which is nice. The boat went into the water on Tuesday morning, and we went out for a few hours in it both Tuesday and Wednesday - although it´s very heavy (about a ton), once it gets up to speed it seems to pootle along quite nicely. We´ve been getting 4 knots or so out of it when it´s been calm and we´re rowing together - obviously we´re still pretty fresh, but if we can keep up that kind of speed we´ll be happy! The oppo seems to come in the form of an Irish pair (one of whom was at the Sydney Olympics, the other is a Henley winner - and they have the winning boat from the 2003 race), a Danish pair who are long distance Danish-boat rowers, a pair of UK older guys who´ve rowed to a high level, and potentially a Brit and a South American who aren´t great rowers but who met when they came 1st and 2nd in some loopy ultra-marathon in Canada!

So anyway, Sunday it is, and we´re aiming for a good un. Don´t forget that you can follow our progress on our website - www.atlanticprince.com, and the full fleet´s progress on the race website www.atlanticrowingrace.com. You can also email us on rowers@atlanticprince.com - but plain text emails only please, and no attachments - the bit rate over a satellite phone is verrrry slow, and it costs us a quid a minute!

Lastly, our competition closes the moment we cross the start line - 10.30am on Sunday. If you´ve been holding out then now is the time to enter!! 1000 pounds is still up for grabs!